1945: In the novel Cliffords Blues, by John
A. Williams, the diary kept by the title character, who is a prisoner
in the Nazi concentration camp Dachau, ends, the same day that the camp
was liberated by American forces. (April 28)

1945:Richard
Wrights Black Boy was the number one bestseller in
the nation. Later, U.S. Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi would denounce
the book as obscene. (April 29)

1957:The Town, a novel by William
Faulkner and volume two of the Snopes trilogy, was published
by Random House. (May 1)

1973: The Grassroot Woman, a one-act play by T.
J. Whitaker, was first performed in Vicksburg, Mississippi, at Baltes
Gym. (April 27)

1983: Journalist Turner Catledge died after suffering a
stroke in New Orleans. (April 27)

NEWS about MISSISSIPPI WRITERS

Film version of John Grishams A Painted House
to air on CBS April 27

April 22, 2003

Fans of novelist John
Grishams semi-autobiographical novel A Painted House have
a reason to tune in to CBS-TV on Sunday, April 27, when a filmed adaptation
of the novel premieres to a nationwide audience.

Unlike most of Grishams fiction, the
novel features no lawyers, courtroom antics, or legalistic maneuverings. Instead,
it focuses on rural cotton farms, baseball, and migrant workers of northeast
Arkansas during the 1950s. Grisham grew up in Arkansas in the 1950s, and he
applied much of what he experienced there in this decidedly different change
of pace from his bestselling legal thrillers.

“This is my favorite book,” Grisham
told USA Today. “The story was written as fiction, but there
is a lot of family history in there. The stories [depicted in the novel]
have been around forever, ever since I was a little kid. A lot of the stories
were just old family tales, handed down from a father and grandfather, both
with a great sense of exaggeration. So I dont know whats true
and whats not.”

The book was first published in serial form
in The Oxford American in 2000, a magazine for which Grisham was then
publisher and which was based at that time in Oxford, Mississippi, Grishams
part-time home. Grisham later sold his share of the magazine and it moved
its base of operation to Little Rock, Arkansas. The novel, meanwhile, was
published in book form in 2001 and became a bestseller.

The novel is the coming-of-age story of a
seven-year old farm boy, Luke Chandler, who lives in the cotton fields with
his parents and grandparents in a house that has never been painted. Set during
the cotton harvest of 1952, the story brings together three distinct groups
of people: the Chandler family, a family of Ozarks hill people, and Mexican
migrants who are hired to harvest the cotton crop before it is ruined by floods.

The film adaptation of the novel was filmed
in large measure in the towns of Lepanto and Clarkedale, Arkansas, about 30
miles from Black Oak, where Grisham grew up, on a farm much like the one depicted
in the novel. At Grishams request, the film premiered on April 14 at
Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

The film stars Scott Glenn, Melinda Dillon,
and Logan Lerman as Luke.

The Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation of
A Painted House airs on CBS on April 27 at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

A Mississippi fable of divine visitation,
jealousy, murder, and salvation.

For a long time nothing much has changed
for the poor black congregation of the Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church
of Clearwater, Mississippi. Eastertime has dutifully rolled around again.
The azaleas are in bloom.

And then off in the distance comes a wondrous
music—a music that thunders throughout the sky with sweet majesty.
It brings in its trail a celestial cloud and signals a heavenly visit:
Jesus and Simon Peter have come to town. But they are women. Jewish
women—well dressed and built like runway models, to be exact.
“At times Ive come to earth in the form of a man. But this
time Ive come as a woman. Is something wrong with me appearing
as a woman?” Ms. Jesus asks the surprised churchgoers.

In short order, this unexpected turn of
events becomes the norm. Jesus and Simon Peter drink chablis with the
locals; arrange for oil drilling on black families tiny lots;
make some folks rich and a few bitterly envious; get caught up in civil
rights matters; and figure in a suspense-filled series of events that
bring joy and prosperity, hatred and murder, and, as a final surprise,
redemption.

When Clayton Sullivan first published Jesus
and the Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church with Doubleday in 1992, many
sang his little fables praises. Morgan Freeman called the book
“A delightful, if reverent, romp up and down the aisles of a Mississippi
Baptist congregation. Fun!”

Eugenia Price said, “That Jesus the
Carpenter of Nazareth was the Son of God occurred to almost no one until
coarse and uncouth people as well as legalistic, brainy, religious types
began to see Him live, act and speak in a way unlike anyone else. Whether
they spoke in vulgarities or in pious-sounding platitudes, people were
taken off guard by the fact that He was a common workman, homeless,
lived simply—even crudely—did and said startling, unorthodox
things that shook people to their roots, as in Clayton Sullivans
remarkable fable, Jesus and the Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church.
This is a fable. No one is claiming that Jesus might come again as a
well-dressed Jewish woman. So, put aside your prejudices and read it.
The Gospel is here in all its simple, shining power.”

Clayton Sullivan is a retired Baptist minister
living in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He is a professor emeritus of philosophy
and religion at the University of Southern Mississippi.

AUTHOR EVENTS: Book Signings, Readings, and Appearances

April 30:Barnard Observatory lecture hall, The University
of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, 12 p.m.

Brown Bag Lunch & Lecture: “Darkness
on the Delta: A Black & White History in 8MM from the Pepper Collection
of the Southern Media Archive,” by Margaret Pepper Grantham, Oxford
librarian. Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Southern Culture,
www.olemiss.edu/depts/south/.

If you know of upcoming literary events by or about Mississippi
writers, please let us know by writing us at mwp@olemiss.edu.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Yoknapatawpha Summer Writers Workshop

The University of Mississippi is hosting
a four-day writing workshop June 26-29, 2003. The program will feature
workshops and lectures on craft, book signings and readings by such
writers as Barry Hannah,
Tom Franklin, David Galef,
Cynthia Shearer, Beth Ann Fennelly, and Ann-Fisher Wirth. Tuition for
the workshop is $395 per person and includes workshops, lectures, panel
discussions, readings, and one evening reception. The registration deadline
is Friday, June 6, 2003. For more information, visit the workshop web
site, www.outreach.olemiss.edu/summer/yokna_writers/.

Elmore Leonard, author of more than
30 novels (including Bandits, Get Shorty, and Tishomingo Blues),
numerous film and television productions, essays and commentaries, will
read and talk about his career. For more information on Leonard, visit
www.elmoreleonard.com/.
Elmore Leonards new book, When the Women Come Out to Dance,
is to be published in November 2003. Johnson Commons Ballroom, The University
of Mississippi, 7 p.m. Sponsored by the John and Renee Grisham Visiting
Writers Series and the Department of English at the University of Mississippi.

If you know of additional news items for this newsletter or if you
have suggestions, please write us at mwp@olemiss.edu.

For more information about events in the Oxford and University of Mississippi
community, see the Ole Miss Community Calendar: www.olemiss.edu/calendar/